12th June 2021
Since returning from Auckland, I have chased my tutor for the written report following our discussion to ensure that I have captured all his recommendations – these have still not appeared so a little worried that I might be going down a rabbit hole. I have reviewed the layout and asked my friend to print for an initial review in hard copy – this highlighted an issue with InDesign; even though I had offset the margins for binding when you send to pdf it centres everything to the page, so after a bit of research finally got that issue sorted. I also asked a friend who is a photographer and not a student to give their feedback and have made a few more changes.
The illustration that was kindly provided by a fellow student had been scanned from her log book and produced a different colour tone when printed so I had to import into Photoshop and copy onto a new layer which resolved the issue.
Original Image provided:
Image following changes in Photoshop
I wasn’t happy with the group of four images on a page at the start as this was the only group like this and so changed to a tryptic to match other areas of the set.
Initial set of four images following review:
Changed to a tryptic:
Page layout can be found here
Video can be viewed here
I have sent the pages to be printed and plan to produce a mock book. This will be A4 in size as a number of reviews highlighted the need to provide larger images but to still keep that isolation, and space around the images.
With my Adobe Cloud subscription, I can also produce a portfolio (separate website) of my images and this can be found here. The new site includes images that didn’t make it and those that did into the final video.
20th June 2021
Received the images back from the printers and so set about make the mock book. Looking at the prints I wasn’t sure if the margin I had used in InDesign was deep enough to allow the cover to open flat and leave enough space for the image to look central on the page, but decided to proceed.
Cutting the front and back covers:
Adding pages and clapping ready to drill the holes for the connector bolts:
And as I feared there wasn’t enough margin and the drill wasn’t sharp enough, so back to InDesign to increase the internal gutter measurement and send to re-print. Luckily using the master pages as templates makes the whole job a lot easier to apply changes.
27th June 2021
Bit of a frustrating week as I still hadn’t received the written report back from my tutor so I decided to post my work to ‘SheClicks’ an all-female social media group on Facebook and the OCA Critique Forum. As this was potentially not enough pain, I contacted the president of the NZIPP (New Zealand Institute of Professional Photographers) to ask for someone in NZ that might have the time to review and give feedback. She kindly approached someone and they agreed so I emailed and included the link to the new website.
On the whole I think the feedback from the social media group understood the project, a few comments suggested changes but they understood what I was trying to get across which was the main aim. They only had the video and a brief from my introduction. Feedback can be found here.
The feedback response from the OCA forum was disappointing with only three comments:
|
Nuala513668 |
This is very powerful work.
I am not sure exactly what you wish to submit – all the individual images and the video or just the video?
Both are really interesting. Although I love most of the images in each section of the individual sets. I would reduce the number. I know this is really difficult but keep a spectacular set of say 9 or 12 is even more impressive. Your rejects will go into a file of learning outcomes as “What I had to reject”. For example in the portraits you have a lady in a red jumber- within that set you have 3 really great portraits 3,5,7. It is the same with the other sets – 3 really great images are more spectacular than 7 with one or two less powerful. The fact that you can lead the assessor to what you rejected and why is as important as what you show.
I am not even sure you would need the video although it is lovely.
Hope this does nto send you up the walls!!
|
Gary513749 |
Personally, I like the video, I Iike the way that it develops.It is difficult to get that in an exhibition as people don’t necessarily view the images in the order that you intended.
|
Morris513748 |
I too like the video, starting with the sea and coming back to the land and sea with intimate glimpses of people’s lives and their connection to the land and sea. I did wonder about audio – sounds of the sea or wind to pick up the notes about the hostility of living there, but audio can dominate the experience.
As Nuala suggests I would reduce the numbers in your image series ‘Portraits’ to the best ones that relate together as they will have more impact. I have found the advice of Jorg Colberg in ‘Photobooks’ very helpful in making decisions about what to keep and what not to use. He, and my tutor, talk about standing back and try to disassociate yourself from what is in the pictures and your background knowledge and feelings about them when selecting images. That advice has helped me a lot in ordering lots of images.
The feedback from the NZ professional photographer pulled no punches which is what I needed. My original idea for the website was to show both images that I had included and those that didn’t, but as the feedback pointed out it was confusing and really diluted the story – ‘less is more’. So, I have taken this onboard and removed those that are not so strong enough and don’t contribute to the narrative. Receiving feedback like this is hard to receive as I’ve lived this project for so long, the feedback from my tutor resulted in a lot of images being removed so I wasn’t worried about parting with them but it’s all part of the learning process and I know that I could ignore the comments and come away with potentially a poorer set.
Feedback from Nick Servian (http://nickservian.com/) can be found here.
On the 24th June I received the written report from my tutor on Assignment 5 which can be found here. I’ve read and re-read the comments and as you can see following our initial catch up following my submission back on the 18th May, I have undertaken a number of re-edits and reviews of the suggested material so luckily, I don’t think I have missed anything considering the time taken to receive the report. I have produced my reflective feedback here.
I collected the new set of prints so I can now have another go at producing the mock book will report on progress over the next few days as I need to work on my Assignment Five for Contextual Studies.
Michele Usher 